Walter Bagehot: “The new man put into a fresh office ought to have the best motive to learn his task thoroughly, but, in fact, in…”

But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.

These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.

I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.

Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.